COAI. KOLKATA: GSM industry body Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI) escalated a war of letters by now writing to the telecom minister on Monday, reiterating its demand for a review of pricing of CDMA airwaves and reducing the 10 MHz cap on such spectrum, asserting that failure to do so would lead to violation of auction rules.

In his second letter to the government - this time to telecom minister Ravi Shankar Prasad - on issues relating to 800 MHz spectrum, COAI Director General Rajan Mathews said while the M&A guidelines prescribe a 10 MHz cap for such airwaves, "there is an additional proviso," that states "relevant conditions pertaining to auction of that spectrum shall apply".

A copy of the letter to Prasad is also marked to telecom secretary Rakesh Garg, to whom COAI had sent the initial letter on the subject on September 16.

According to COAI, since the March 2015 auction rules stipulate an in-band cap of 50% for 800 MHz spectrum in any service area, some bidders were restricted in acquiring airwaves in the recent auctions due to application of spectrum caps.

"Ignoring these caps now would create inequities, and any other interpretation will lead to a violation of the Notice Inviting Application conditions (read: auction rules for the March 2015 spectrum sale)," the GSM lobby body fronted by telco biggies Bharti Airtel, Vodafone India and Idea Cellular said.

However, in making its second submission on 800 MHz spectrum issues, the COAI appears to have disregarded the views of members Telenor and Videocon Telecom who had both urged it to refrain from rushing one submission after another without adequate discussions with all members.

Mathews did not reply to ET's queries on whether Telenor and Videocon had been taken on board before dashing off the second to the government. Telenor and Videocon also did not reply to ET's emails on whether they were consulted by the COAI before the latest submissions issues relating to CDMA airwaves.

In his communication to Prasad and Garg, Mathews reiterated that only one of COAI's members "does not agree with the position and conclusions in the letter", referring to Reliance Jio Infocomm, which is the only major holder of 800 MHz airwaves within the COAI.

Reiterating COAI's call for increasing the cost of liberalising CDMA spectrum -- which would allow the band to be used for 4G services - Mathews cited an earlier Trai recommendation that the minimum block size of spectrum to be auctioned must be 5MHz to satisfy the needs of the technology.

"It is evident (from the Trai recommendation) that for the market to discover a liberalized price, the spectrum put to auction must be at least 5 MHz," wrote Mathews, in a bid to reaffirm the COAI's position that the price discovered for the CDMA airwaves in the March 2015 auction cannot be used as a benchmark for its liberalisation as the quantum of such airwaves auctioned in as many as 12 circles was less than 5 MHz, which, in turn, elicited poor demand as it cannot be used for deploying quality 4G LTE services.

The GSM body had originally called for increasing the price of liberalizing CDMA airwaves in its September 16 letter to Garg. However, in near identical letters to the telecom secretary, dated September 18, Reliance Jio, a COAI member, and Reliance Communications, had rubbished COAI's demand, and decried the proposal as "frivolous, legally unsustainable and anti-consumer", which would also tantamount to bringing about a retrospective change in the March 2015 auction rules.